Technology use in lectures to enhance students' attention

Abstract

Mobile devices, such as laptops, smartphones and tablets, are ubiquitous in lectures. Students report to use their mobile devices for lecture-related activities (e.g. taking notes). Observational data shows, that students use mobile device mainly for lecture-unrelated activities, like Facebook or playing games. So currently, mobile devices seem to distract learners from the lecture and ultimately hinder student-teacher interaction. In this study, we investigated how students (n = 75) use their mobile devices (N = 80) in a traditional lecture setting when supported with the technological support system "Backstage" or not. Backstage entails functions for quizzing students (Audience-Response-System) and a backchannel allowing students to interact with each other, commenting on slides, asking questions, and providing feedback to lecturers. The results show that this technology increases students' focus on lecture-related activities. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.